For four years, Peahi-born Jon Shirota wrote diligently to Lowney Turner Handy, in efforts gain acceptance to The Handy Writers’ Colony in Marshall, Illinois. “When Lowney telegraphed him to come to Marshall in 1963, Shirota immediately quit his job of six and a half years and drove more than half way across the country,” writes Ray Elliott, president of the James Jones Literary Society. It was during his final year at Brigham Young University, that Shirota read From Here to Eternity (authored by Jones, Lowney’s “most famous protégé”), and says of his subsequent inspiration, “I have a book in me that’s better than that.” In 1966, two years after Handy’s death (he was one of the last under her tutelage), Shirota penned Lucky Come Hawai’i, followed by Pineapple White in 1974—after which he began playwriting. His latest, Voices from Okinawa, was published as the summer 2009 edition of Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing (the University of Hawai’i’s literary journal currently celebrating it’s 20th anniversary). The East West Players debuted the play in Los Angeles in February 2008, while this weekend, Mauians can enjoy Kumu Kahua Theater’s staging. Still not enamored? Hana Hou! reports his LA workplace is a “wood-paneled second-story office, filled with Kerouac novels, award placards, war memorabilia and a filing system that covers the floor next to his desk, he’s filled with nostalgia for his family and his Island homeland.” 808-242-7469.